When people come up and stand next to me on a platform, I
always feel the urge to confess to them that I don’t know where the train doors
will stop. Of course, I never say anything, being London, you know. You don’t want
to go about greeting strangers and being helpful and all, or else you’ll be a
weirdo.So I just stand there warming my
hands in my pockets, and when the train stops and we’re all facing windows
instead of doors, I simply shrug off the guilt and I engage in polite
shovelling with the people I’ve misled. Every damn time, like yesterday when I rode
on a South-Eastern train to keep my date with Cold Shoulder.

Cold Shoulder. Not only was she free to meet, she also
suggested the café we went to the first time. Of all places, there. But I
shouldn’t read much into that, right? Too late. I already did. Signs
everywhere. She kept my number after all this time. She’s single – I think. She
jumped at meeting up with me. She chose the place we both had our first date.

So, the train journey. It took two hours in total from my office
to the café. We’d agreed a time and I was on time, but Cold Shoulder wasn’t
there when I walked through the café with my coat still on because I wanted her
to see how good I thought I looked in it. It was rather toasty in there and I
began to sweat under the synthetic wool pretty sharpish so she didn’t get to
see me in it. I found a table for two and waited. I could see the door from where
I sat. I could see the entire road, for that matter. Glass. I could see her
before she saw me. I moved the chairs, rearranged the standing-upright menu on
the table, and I chose the perfect waiting pose and I waited. And I waited, and
I waited, and I waited. And I remembered how on our only date that many years
ago she’d been late as well. And I waited some more, and in the time I waited,
I started to think of all my deal-breakers and how tardiness was at or close to
the top of the list.

Up there with not being on time is a behaviour that has
divided my friends. Something that really screws with me. Roughly half of my
friends agree with me that it’s just not on while the other half think it’s
cute. The first half are mostly men, the other half mostly women. And it is
this: taking food from my plate in a restaurant. Arghhhh! I just can’t stand
it. I see that uninvited fork encroaching upon the airspace of my food and I go
do def con 4. The nukes are warming up. And what makes it even worse is the
lame, afterthought attempt at justifying the theft: ‘Do you want to try some of
mine?’

NO! No, I do not want to try your dumplings. If I wanted dumplings
I would have ordered dumplings. Do you see any dumplings on my plate? No. That’s
because I did not want dumplings so I did not order dumplings. I wanted steak!
I ordered steak! Now leave my steak the ef alone!!! (This is someone's rant. Not mine.)

Well, you get the picture. I go ballistic. But all on the
inside, while on the outside I continue smiling. Wars are sometimes declared in
silence. I have decided not to date someone because they were a plate invader.

Cold Shoulder was really keeping me waiting, so I had time
to go over more of my bugbears. I even discovered one I never knew I had.At the end of my retrospective session I’d
counted ten. Ten deal breakers. Ten things I just couldn’t stand in a partner.
To qualify they had to be something that had made me end a relationship or
refuse to proceed with a potential. I even attempted to rank them and that
particular exercise led me to a life changing realisation. All this time I’d
been discounting people based on my deal breakers, people have probably been
discounting me to. Foreclosing on any form of intimate future with me. I have
my deal breakers, they have their. I judge them, they judge me. On what was I
being silently judged? My obsessive time keeping? My insane irritation at the innocent
action of a date stabbing her fork into a piece of my steak?

A catalogue of faces began to form, each with a title
beneath it: ‘Weird laugh.’ ‘Eats too fast.’ ‘Watches the Kardashians.’ ‘Does
not know who Stephen Hawking is.’ ‘Thinks we speak Nigerian in Nigeria.’ ‘Always
wants to hold hands in public.’ ‘Never holds hands in public.’ ‘Loud chewer.’
And slowly the titles faded and only the faces remained. Faces of perfectly
normal people. People I should have made it work with, but for my crazy, insane,
infantile, deal breakers. Little bugbears that kept me single and lonely when I
could have been a couple and happy.

And with this realisation came a resolve so powerful that I
felt its force as a wave that swelled and swept through me. From now hence
forth, I will become mature and stop looking for flaws.

I
checked the time. Cold Shoulder was thirty minutes late. I picked up my jacket
and began to leave.

Congratulations, Leye, it sounds as if you (or at least your character) has reached a new stage in the self-awareness journey. Far too many souls find someone who has 98% of all one could hope for in a partner, but then focus on the 2% as a basis for walking away. Just be wary of an inversion--where you go for a flashy 2% and ignore the warning 98%.

Yeah, Jeff, take Barbara, for example. (Yes, I know, you already did...) Perfect in almost every way. And then there's that annoying habit of hers of completely ruining almost every selfie you take. Hard to live with, I imagine. Just try not to focus on it (a different camera lens will help with that...)

It's a universal rule that any female is allowed to steal chips off a bloke's plate. Get used to it. It's a calorie thing. A portion is too fattening, a 'few' is just right. I think other food should be stolen only by mutual consent.However, persistent lateness is just rude, is their time more important that yours ? Of course not. Makes my blood boil. I'll stop now as I am starting to rant. It's a Scottish thing!